HISTORICAL DETAILS RELATIVE TO THE PROVINCIAL COUNCILS OF LIMA.
Among the many excellent institutions which distinguish the Peruvian capital, is to be reckoned that of the provincial councils celebrated there. They evince the constant zeal of the monarchs of Spain for religion and discipline; and the pastoral vigilance of the prelates, who have spared neither pains nor labour, in the promotion of their views, and in the accomplishment of these sacred and interesting purposes.
The disturbances of which Gonzalo Pizarro was the principal instigator having been successfully terminated, and before others of a still more sanguinary nature had been excited by the open rebellion of Francisco Hernandes Giron, the fathers and prelates who resided at Lima, availed themselves of that short interval, to establish some degree of order in the affairs of the church, which, in common with all the other concerns of the republic, had been deranged, shortly after the conquest, by revolutions similar to those above pointed out. They accordingly united in a provincial council in the year 1552. Not any mention is made of the bishops who were present; but it is extremely probable that, besides friar Geronimo Loaysa, of the order of St. Domingo, the first archbishop of Lima, the bishops of Quito and Cusco, who then resided in that city, and who, as well as the archbishop, accompanied the president Gasco to the battle of Sachahuana, constituted a part of the council. The questions which were discussed in this congregation are not noticed; and indeed the only information now extant relates to the convocation itself. It is probable that this assembly was a kind of Peruvian Cortes, in
